How long did it take you to get to where you want on the guitar? How long until you were comfortable playing what you wanted to play? How long until you felt you were pretty good on the guitar? You get the gist. How much daily practice did you put in during this period?

Well this question is so subjective to be meaningful really, When I started there was a few songs I used to listen to and say to myself "If I could play like that then I would be happy",
you get to the stage where you can play them, the stage I am at, and I know I am NOWHERE NEAR where I want to be.
The more you play, the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know and how far you have to go.
Put the time in... 2-3 hours a day, and in a few years you can pat yourself on the back and be really proud of yourself, like I am.
Good luck!

I am now far beyond the level of playing i strived to when i didn't know anything about music or guitar, but the more i learned and got into new bands and styles of music as i got better i changed my view of what i wanted to be. I am nowhere near the level i want to be with the view and insight i have now, and i think that is one of the things pushing me to be better, so embrace it!

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Fusion and jazz musician, a fan of most music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guthrie Govan

“If you steal from one person it's theft, and if you steal from lots of people it's research”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chick Corea

"Only play what you hear. If you don't hear anything, don't play anything."

If you're making a plan along the lines of "I want to be as good as Steve Vai or Guthrie Govan in 10 years time", then you're likely to get a little frustrated with that.

I think it's necessary to set yourself shorter term goals. They're easier to assess and learn from. And the bigger goals need to be broken down into what you can manage in a regular routine.

If you want to build a repertoire, without necessarily improving technique, then set yourself a goal of a song a week or day (depending on your own specifics).

If there's a particular song you want to learn, but it's too tough: try to figure out how much of it you can learn in a practice session. If it's one or two bars, then you're going to have to commit a few practice sessions to the project over weeks/months. If it has a variety of techniques you need to learn, then you might have to spend time on those away from the song. But try to be specific in measuring where you are and how much progress you want to make (or can make as you learn more about how you learn).

I spend 10 minutes a day on theory. That fits my priorities, and I find it builds. It's an open ended commitment.

I also use a program called Anki, which is a freeware flash card system. The idea is that you put in what you have learned, and it tests you on it and keeps track of what you remember. The idea is that the interval between re-tests gets longer; with the aim that you are re-tested before you forget.

I've found it works for repertoire, although I've had to change the way it calculates intervals by quite a bit. But it's mainly designed for remembering facts rather than skills.

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Learning a new cover song? Feel like recording it? And have people listen to it? See the CATPM thread in the Pit. Here's the user group

That is actually a very interesting question. Now, I'm not, nor will I ever be happy with where I am now, however, if my 13 year old self could see me playing now, then my 13 year old self would think I was even better than what I wanted to be. Nowadays, I actually have a passion for getting better, improving and playing technical stuff is what motivates me, so I write harder and harder things so that I can play them and improve. I believe that a good guitarist is happy where he is; a great guitarist will never be happy. The players you hear of every day, the John Petruccis, the Luca Turillis, the Stevee Vais are pushing their personal boundaries all the time, and that's why they're so good, that's why they're still amazing, because you buy their new album and you can still be blown away, because they've gotten even better. You should never plan to be satisfied, you should always plan to be better.